


the slant of hope

by celaenos



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Big Bang Challenge, Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Canonical Character Death, Dimension 20 Big Bang, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, One Shot, Road Trips, Rocks Family, Sibling Bonding, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28297200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/pseuds/celaenos
Summary: Absently, Ruby is aware of Saccharina moving almost cautiously towards her—the way one might approach a wild animal. Ruby doesn’t even have it in her to send all of her anger and hate Saccharina’s way right now. She doesn’t know how to even begin to explain what she is feeling in this moment, other than the fact that she is dealing with an absence so loud that she doesn’t think she can even speak. Saccharina must intuit this, somehow.(In the small part of her brain that isn’t overwhelmed by loss, Ruby considers that Saccharina, a girl that grew up alone, without a castle or her family, might actually know a thing or two about loss).
Relationships: Saccharina Frostwhip & Ruby Rocks
Comments: 16
Kudos: 40
Collections: Dimension 20 Big Bang





	the slant of hope

**Author's Note:**

> thank you very much to the mods for their hard work and to my WONDERFUL artist [yellingpasta](https://yellingpasta.tumblr.com/) for their stunning piece, which you can bask at below.

__

_..._

_..._

_day one:_

…

...

Ruby feels something hard hit the back of her head and then her vision goes pure black, just for a moment.

She stumbles, the pain and panic distorting time, ballooning it and then compressing it again; all that she remembers after that moment is her father’s voice screaming out for her to run, her mother’s piercing cry of agony from inside of the sugar hut, desperately trying to hold onto the spell; and then, all the colors of Candia flash before her eyes as the pain radiates up from the back of her skull, stinging and crippling her in place—for one moment too long _._ Her teeth reverberate as she bites down hard, trying to steel herself to keep on running, to get to her family, but she can’t _see._ Her mother’s screams mix together with her father’s, creating one awful, agonized sound before any noise left coming from inside of the sugar hut vanishes completely.

There’s a moment where she thinks, _fuck, Saccharina was right. I wasted time going into the stupid tent._

Ruby flinches half a beat later when an unearthly, undulating boom rings out and eats up all of the air in the plaza; the walls of the newly empty sugar hut begin to shake like the rattling of spears against a castle wall. The sound gouges its way through everyone’s skulls—except for Ruby’s. The color spots fade from her vision as she blinks her way through the noise. She watches as the soldiers around her all clap their hands over their ears and drop prone, screaming. The next thing that she knows, hands are on her, and Ruby screams out in a pure panic until she hears a newly familiar voice quickly say, “It’s me,” and then all of the air disappears from her lungs.

They land together, about ninety feet away from the plaza. Before Ruby can catch her breath again Saccharina says, “Hang on, we’ve got to get further away,” and the thunderous clap rings out again, then again, then again—and again. Saccharina’s arms don’t quite fall away when they land for the final time so much as shift, clasping onto Ruby’s arm and hauling her as they begin to sprint, trying to put as much ground between the two of them and the army of soldiers back in the plaza. “I can’t do that again today,” Saccharina pants. “We’ve got to find a place to hide.”

Ruby wants to shove her sister’s hands away. She wants to tell Saccharina to fuck off, to leave her alone, she didn’t need saving, anyway.

Except that she did. Ruby swallows that fact down and puts all of her focus on running as fast as she can—which is faster than Saccharina, in all her armor. For a flash of a moment, Ruby considers turning invisible and sprinting ahead, leaving Saccharina to her fate and then figuring out how to get home on her own. _Jet would never, though,_ Ruby thinks. _If she were the one still here. She wouldn’t leave anyone behind._ Ruby races forward, calling out alerts softly behind her for fallen debris, errant roots, low-hanging branches, whatever will get both of them away from the soldiers as quickly as possible—not out of any desire to help Saccharina.

Not really.

Probably not, anyway.

…

…

They find a cave just as the final light of day peters out into nothing. Saccharina casts something up ahead and then deems it safe and unsuspecting and hidden enough for her standards. Ruby slides down the wall and splays out, panting and exhausted and covered in sweat. Her life seems to just be one gross unshowered day after another, now. She hates how much she hates it, how much there is a part of her that longs for the hot springs in the castle. Ruby shoves the papers away from where she’d been clutching them and Yak swirls over and rests on a perch just above her head.

Neither of them says anything for a few moments. Then, Ruby can’t stand it. “Do you think they got away?”

“Yes,” Saccharina says, with an assurance that leaves no room for arguments. Ruby’s not trusting anyone but her family, these days, but she nods and takes Saccharina at her word all the same. Because the alternative is that she is now truly as alone in the world as she already feels, and she doesn’t think that her heart could take it.

Ruby shivers, the cold settling its way into her bones now that she’s not forcing her body into a dead sprint; the adrenaline pours out of her and leaves her shaking, and cold, and feeling, very, very young all of the sudden. Yak tries to nestle into the crook of her neck and warm her, but a butterscotch bird can only do so much. Ruby blinks a moment later when a bonfire appears in the ground in front of her and Saccharina’s hand falls back down to her side.

“Won’t that make us noticeable?” Ruby snaps, because she’s feeling useless about her part in the fight and prickly about the very idea of a sister that is not Jet.

Saccharina looks at her and… Ruby can see her swallow against a rough patch in her throat before answering. “We are far enough out and the cave is hidden well. I think we’ll be fine.”

“I’m just saying—”

“I’ve hidden out in plenty of caves from bulbian soldiers before, little sister,” she snaps back. “Have you?”

Ruby shuts her mouth.

The fire warms them up quickly—magical fires tend to work fast like that, Ruby’s discovering—and Ruby’s limbs feel loose enough to unfurl herself and start pouring over the documents that she grabbed. She’s desperate for them to mean something, because otherwise, what good was she back there at all?

There are a lot of them, and as sour as Ruby feels towards everything that Saccharina represents, she pushes a pile towards her and the two of them bend over and read by the firelight in silence. A few minutes later, Saccharina gasps and looks up, a hand reaching out and grabbing at Ruby’s forearm. “The Pontifex is trying to get to the Ice Cream Temple.” There’s a strained urgency to her words that has Ruby studying her face a bit more closely. The Temple had clearly been something important to her, but now, Ruby sees just _how much._ She put off something deeply important to try and rescue Joren and help her family.

Ruby has no idea how to respond to the way that makes her feel. Mostly, just more anger.

“Here,” Ruby says, pulling another letter out from her own pile. “This might be the answering letter.” She holds it up to Saccharina and they quickly scan both letters. “It says that we have a week to get there first,” Ruby says. She watches Saccharina do the math. Ruby tries to picture the map that Saccharina had splayed out on the table in her ‘war council.’

“It’s doable by foot,” Saccharina declares.

“But, my—”

Suddenly, Saccharina bolts upwards and stands up straight, looking terrified. Ruby reaches for her bow, but then Saccharina’s shoulders relax. “Theobald is talking to me,” she says and Ruby’s whole body shifts towards the woman—her sister—and she waits, all sense of patience lost.

“What? How? What did he say?”

“Wait,” Saccharina amends, “it’s not him. It’s a monk from the Spinning Star speaking on his behalf. I’ve heard of this spell,” she says. “It can cross miles, but it’s a limited amount of communication.”

“Is my dad okay?” Ruby asks without thinking. Saccharina flinches.

“According to Theobald, Amethar, Caramelinda, and your cousins are all alive and uninjured. Joren, Spearia, and my marauders are safe as well, but they cannot teleport back to us today.”

Ruby bites down at the inside of her cheek. “I didn’t even know that my mom could do that at all until today,” she mutters. _Why didn’t any of them tell Ruby and Jet that they were cool? That they could do magic?_ She doesn’t know why she gives Saccharina this information and she instantly regrets it. Rather than respond, Saccharina stares out at the blank wall and sucks in a breath, holding up her fingers and beginning to speak, choosing her limited words carefully as she counts them off.

Theo responds a few times. Or, the monk does. Ruby doesn’t know how this spell works. It takes ages for them to make a plan, to explain the bare bones of the vast information that Ruby retrieved.

(Theo praises her. He wastes precious words to make sure Ruby knows that she did a good job. It means more to her than it probably should).

They want the two of them to wait, which nettles at Ruby as much as it clearly nettles at Saccharina. Ruby watches as she rolls her shoulders back, as her voice pitches higher, sweeter, almost sickly so as she firmly says, “you haven’t been acting as my father for years, and you’re no longer the king in the eyes of the law, Amethar. I don’t need orders or coddling from you. We’ll meet you at the temple. Time is of the essence and there aren’t any standing stones near us. My people have checked these lands. But there _are_ some near the Temple.” Saccharina looks down at Ruby and her whole-body twitches, for half a beat, then it settles again, like she is shouldering something that she hadn’t expected would be that heavy. “I’ll keep Ruby safe,” she promises. “Meet us there in six days.”

Ruby can picture the pinched looks that her father and Theo must be sharing right now. Annoyed at being ordered around by someone younger, someone lesser, by anyone at all. Ruby nettles against her sister’s words too. She almost wants to shout _I don’t need you to keep me anything!_ but remembers the feeling of something hard cracking against the back of her skull. The feeling of the water dagger sliding into her gut, the way that Saccharina literally flew across the plaza and saved her uncle in less than a minute.

But, she has nothing left inside of her but anger and resentment and vengeance, so she says it anyway. “I can take care of myself,” she snaps, once the party finally agrees to Saccharina’s plan. She doesn’t mean for it to sound as childish as it does; it just falls out of her mouth that way before she can stop it.

Saccharina has a look on her face like Ruby isn’t fooling anyone, but she only shrugs in response. “Fine,” she allows. Then rolls over and lies down beside the fire, closing her eyes and leaving Ruby to her awful, angry, lonely thoughts.

…

…

_day two:_

…

…

The annoying part about it all is that their skills complement each other; Ruby can scout up ahead, message Saccharina, and then double back if they’re coming up on unfamiliar territory. Saccharina can’t be as stealthy, but she knows how to sneak around the mountains in ways that Ruby just… doesn’t. The last month of her life is the most that Ruby has ever spent outside of the castle walls; she doesn’t know anything about plant life, or moss on trees, or following directions by the sun above—but Saccharina does. Even their magic somehow seems to complement each other, which is the most infuriating part of all. Because Saccharina seems _excited_ about this fact and Ruby wants to claw her skin off at the notion of complementing anyone but Jet.

Ruby recoils from Saccharina’s joy, her attempts at connection—she responds only with sharpness, making her words cutting and hard and absent of anything but quick anger. Saccharina keeps on trying anyway, determined to push her way through Ruby’s anger to find something else underneath, but there isn’t anything else left for her to find anymore.

Ruby desperately wishes that she would stop trying.

…

…

They make good time and by the end of the evening, when they find a nook in the mountains that Saccharina trusts to give them a decent amount of cover, she’s satisfied with their progress. Theo sends them another message checking in through (presumably, since he’s not sending any of the messages to _her,_ so Ruby doesn’t really know) that same monk as before. Saccharina responds with quick, succinct words: _they’re fine, thank you._ Ruby rolls her eyes, easily picturing Theo’s frayed nerves as he asks Saccharina one too many questions.

Ruby is exhausted, but it’s the good kind, the kind that fires up your whole body and reminds you that you are alive, all of your muscles singing and saying, _here we are._

They’re both hungry, though. Of course, Saccharina is powerful enough to simply _Create Food and Water_ for them and Ruby wants to scoff and refuse, but she’s starving and it’s impressive. She doesn’t want it to be, but it is. Ruby takes one bite and is reminded of a feast when she was nine years old, Jet sneaking them pastries from the table and the two of them hiding out in a secret tunnel and gorging themselves on sweets until Theo found them.

It’s just a piece of bread, but it takes like that night, like Jet’s favorite sweets. Ruby chokes on her tears and Saccharina looks alarmed.

“Is it bad?” she grabs at the bread, checking it. “It shouldn’t… that’s part of the spell… if I—”

“SHUT UP!” Ruby screams. There’s nothing in her ears but the madness of her own heartbeat, the colossal sound of something rushing downhill. Jet’s brilliant smiling face. “Just… shut up,” she demands, except it doesn’t come out sharp and finite, it comes out like a desperate childish plea. Ruby grabs the bread and stands up, walking away from the fire and Saccharina and climbing up the bit of the mountain that they’ve nestled under for cover. Yak circles above her and she doesn’t look back down at Saccharina once. She finds a little crook and folds herself into it, crying and trying to calm herself down enough in order to force herself to eat.

Her shadow appears on the side of the mountain up in front of her. Her shadow, but with a long braid. Ruby shoves the bit of bread into her mouth and screams through it, the sound leaking out and reaching Saccharina down below. Ruby doesn’t look, but Yak does. He circles above her and then swoops back down to Saccharina without Ruby’s permission. She wants to scold him, but she doesn’t have the energy, and whatever he does, it gets Saccharina to stay down there and leave her alone—a reassurance or a warning, she doesn’t know.

 _Soon,_ a sickly-sweet voice inside her head whispers. _You’ll be with her soon, I promise._

“When?” Ruby chokes.

_Keep coming._

“What?” Saccharina calls out.

“I’m not _talking to you,_ ” Ruby snaps.

“Well, nobody one else is out here apart from the two of us, so you can understand my assumption,” Saccharina says, an edge to her voice that shows she is starting to get fed up with Ruby’s constant barbs.

“The Sugar Plum Fairy doesn’t have to _be here_ in order to talk to you,” Ruby responds haughtily. “Aunt Lazuli, too. Just because there’s no one is talking to _you_ doesn’t mean that they’re not talking to me.” She adds because she feels inferior to this sister, six years older with magic and strength absolutely pouring out of her. Reaching out again and again and trying to connect, to make a relationship between them out of nothing but history that neither of them had any say over, to force Ruby into something that she _doesn’t want._ She wants her words to hurt. That’s the whole point of them.

It has the desired effect.

Sort of.

“Who is it?” Saccharina asks, a hint of worry to her tone that Ruby finds herself surprised at. “Lazuli? Or the Sugar Plum Fairy?”

“Why do you care?” Ruby asks, beginning to crawl down—the mountain rock is uncomfortable. Her plans of sleeping up there and far away from Saccharina to make a point are abandoned. “They were talking to _me,_ not you.”

“Who was it?” Saccharina demands, her voice harsh and commanding for maybe the first time that Ruby has truly seen. Suddenly, her titles of Witch-Queen and Storm-Captain and Enemy of the Faith make a certain sort of sense. Ruby can see the chaotic marauders falling in line to that voice. She can see the queen in her; a Rocks woman. Ruby wants to tell her to fuck off, but her sister’s voice sounds like a queen’s, a leader; it sounds a little like her mother’s does when she’s had enough, and talking back to her would be inadvisable at best.

“The Sugar Plum Fairy,” she answers, jumping back to the ground. “She’s spoken to me a few times.” She holds her jaw up, clenches her teeth, and wills herself not to cry. “She says that she can bring Jet back.”

 _“What?”_ Saccharina reacts to her words violently, as if Ruby has gone off and struck her. She takes a step back from Ruby unconsciously as her whole body shakes and Ruby freezes on the spot.

“Sort of,” Ruby amends, confused at Saccharina’s reaction. “I asked her too… after. Before we… before we escaped.” She doesn’t know _why_ she is giving all this information to Saccharina—she hasn’t even given it to her father yet, to any of them—Saccharina, of all people, doesn’t deserve it, but the look on her face, the way that her whole body has coiled into itself is scaring Ruby, a little. The words just start to fall out of her mouth without her brain making any attempts to stop them. “I asked her what was the point of magic if she couldn’t bring her back, and she said that she couldn’t bring Jet to me, but that she could bring me to Jet.”

Saccharina’s shoulders slump down for a beat, like all of the air has gone out of her, and then her hands ball into fists, and the air around her crackles with electricity. “You can’t trust her,” she says through gritted teeth. “Aunt Lazuli didn’t trust her.”

Ruby wants to slap Saccharina for the sheer audacity of using the familiar title of ‘aunt’. To try and weaponize that connection to get Ruby on her side in this, as if she would _ever_ be on someone else’s side but Jet’s.

“Just because you know a lot about magic doesn’t mean that you know everything,” Ruby snarls. “Aunt Lazuli didn’t know everything, either. If the Sugar Plum Fairy can bring me to Jet, then I’m doing it.”

“You can’t, Ruby—”

She casts _Shocking Grasp._ Ruby’s not sure if it surprises Saccharina or herself more. The second that the lighting spills out of her fingers, she regrets it. Saccharina’s face does something peculiar, and sharp, and deeply unfriendly; for just a _second,_ gone is the sickly-sweet, unassuming woman who has been constantly trying to reach out to Ruby, and in its place, is a coiled sort of stillness, ready to leap forth at a breath, at an errant glance, at a hint of a threat. The violence underneath her skin is tangible and wild and for the first time since meeting Saccharina, Ruby is frightened of her. She prepares to jump, she prepares for Saccharina to use _Wrath of the Storm_ and send double of that damage back at her, she prepares to try and run as fast as she can, knowing that if it comes to blows, she will not win.

Instead, Saccharina casts _Shield._ The sharpness disappears as quickly as it came on, and the fact that she had the time to nearly send the lightning back at Ruby, but paused, controlled herself, and chose to deflect it all in a few seconds shows just how much more controlled and practiced Saccharina is at this than Ruby; her smile goes fixed and stiff, but it doesn’t slip. “Don’t do that again,” she warns. “But… you’re forgiven!”

Ruby stares at her and Saccharina stares back. Yak circles anxiously above them and it feels like the moments directly after a thunderstorm, when everything is both still and wild at the same time. The air surrounding them both still crackles with magical electricity.

Ruby drops her arms, but balls her hands into fists, closing her eyes and trying not to scream. Saccharina sits down beside the fire and pulls out more documents and begins to read them. Calm, despite the fact that Ruby just attacked her—largely unprovoked. Ruby sucks in a ragged, deep breath and tries to control her own emotions—something that she is terrible at. She’s a princess, she never once had to stop herself from emitting to the world whatever she was feeling in the moment. Her mother might disagree, but Ruby never listened; everything that she feels is always just _there,_ spilling out of her for everyone to see, all the time. Saccharina doesn’t have that luxury, and so she is much better at keeping things close to her chest. Choosing her words carefully. Ruby doesn’t think about her words at all. Her emotions are always there, simmering underneath the surface. Everything that she feels, she feels _strongly;_ right now, she can’t feel anything past her anger at the whole world. Hurt. Betrayal. _Grief,_ aching and painful and all-consuming.

And Saccharina can see all of it.

Everyone can.

Ruby sits down as far away from the fire and Saccharina as she can manage without climbing back up the mountain. Yak flies down and lands onto her lap, nuzzling as much as a butterscotch bird can and trying—in his own way—to calm her. Ruby strokes at his feathers methodically, counting as she stares into the magical flames, trying to get every thought out of her mind until there’s nothing but silence while Saccharina sits and reads.

It’s not until later, when Ruby has curled up on the cold hard dirt and is nearly asleep when she realizes that she lied to Saccharina, earlier. The Sugar Plum Fairy never actually said the name Jet when she made her promise. What she actually said was: _The secrets of Candia are still strong in the Great Stone Candy Mountains. That’s where I am. And it’s where your sister is waiting._

And it’s where your sister is waiting; she didn’t say which sister. At the time, Ruby didn’t know that there was even another option.

…

…

_day three:_

…

…

They don’t speak to each other all day unless it relates to the terrain, noises in the forests, or to designate momentary breaks for food and rest.

It’s the hardest day, physically, for Ruby. She’s fast, but she is not used to the sustained, constant physical activity that is climbing through the mountains on foot for days on end. After the adrenaline burst of the first two days, she’s tired and achy and snappish. It takes all of her energy just to focus on climbing and breathing.

A little after midday, Saccharina calls out for a break. Ruby has been panting for nearly half an hour but is determined not to be the one to request to stop. Saccharina—even with all her heavy armor—is far more used to this than Ruby.

It’s one of the many aggravating things about her newfound… sister. Ruby has been keeping a mental tally since she woke up, something else to focus on than how much her feet hurt, or the burning ache in her lungs as they slowly work their way up the steepest mountain peak that Ruby has ever been atop.

Her list goes like this: (in an order that may be rearranged and added onto at any given moment)

  * She is more magical than Ruby; it spills out of her even when she isn’t thinking about it. Ruby can feel the air around her shift, a breeze spills out and cools them both at the top of a hill and Ruby wants to snap that she doesn’t need it, that she’s _fine,_ except that it’s so welcome and feels so good and she still hasn’t caught her breath back, all the way, so.
  * Speaking of magic, Aunt Lazuli came to her, first. Ruby had thought… that was even something that she had that _Jet_ didn’t, and she’s not proud, exactly, of the way that it had made her feel so special—separate of Jet. To find out later that it wasn’t just… because of _her,_ That Saccharina got to have this connection first… Ruby wasn’t proud of the way it felt when she had this prideful feeling over Jet, but with Saccharina, she lets her jealousy fester, doesn’t bother with trying to tamper it down anymore.
  * It’s petty, Ruby knows this—but pettiness, and jealousy, and anger are all the safe emotions that Ruby feels like she can bear to feel, right now—Saccharina has _so many titles_ and she is only six years older than Ruby. Ruby’s never had anything but ‘princess.’ She doesn’t even get to claim that, now. Jet had been happy and proud to bear the title of ‘bastard’ and Ruby had gone along with it, because she always went along with Jet, but now that she’s really thinking about all of the implications of it, now that she’s spent weeks roughing it out in the mountains as a bastard, she misses ‘princess’ and all that came along with it. ‘Queen’ wasn’t ever going to be hers, and she never wanted it to, but… they climb and Saccharina slips—the weight of her armor overcorrecting her balance as she goes to move over a log in their path—and Ruby grabs for her, easy as breathing; instinct, the way she would if it were Jet. Both of them look at each other awkwardly and then keep on walking together in silence and Ruby starts listing all of Saccharina’s titles underneath her breath. _Witch-Queen, Archmage, Storm-Captain, High Priestess, Enemy of the Faith._ The gall of her, to claim all of those things and just appear out of nowhere and ruin all their lives, when all Ruby and Jet ever got was ‘princess’ and ‘bastard’ and ‘dead.’
  * Her hair is… so cool. Her armor is so cool. Her _swords_ are so cool. _Everything_ about her is so cool and if Jet were here she would be so excited, and—
  * Saccharina hates the Sugar Plum Fairy. Ruby needs her. It’s her only chance to be with Jet again and no matter how strong, or magical, or how many titles and claims Saccharina has, Ruby is not going to let Saccharina take that away from her.



She flops down, exhausted—but not in the good way, this time. This time it’s all limbs aching in a way that fires up her whole body and reminds her that she is alive, but barely; all of her muscles are screaming and saying, _you weren’t built for this, you’re too weak, you’re meant to be shut up in a pretty dress inside a castle. Who are you fooling, really?_

When Saccharina hands her some foraged berries and food that she _literally created out of her own magic,_ there’s a smugness to her face that Ruby wants to claw off. (She adds that to the list). It’s a competitive and giddy look in that mirrors the way that Jet would get, after they had a fight or after she beat Ruby in some ridiculous competition they invented—not truly hurtful towards Ruby, but gleeful at being better, at winning, this time. The recognition in that is far more painful than Saccharina’s smugness itself, and Ruby feels like she is being stabbed all over again. She doesn’t want to ever connect Saccharina to Jet at all.

(She wonders if every time that she thinks of Jet from now on, it’s going to feel like a steel poison dagger, sliding into her gut).

Ruby shoves the berries and bread into her mouth and chews angrily as Saccharina sits down—not primly, but with a haughtiness to her that doesn’t quite fit, when Ruby really looks at it—and she eats her food, slow. She takes her time and Ruby knows part of that is gloating, and part of it is because Ruby needs to rest, and all of it makes her want to scream.

“Yak,” she calls out and her bird swoops down a minute later from his perch up in a tree.

Ruby doesn’t know much about familiars. She supposes, had half the leaders of Calorum not tried to kill her father and her whole family in the middle of a cathedral over a month ago, that she would have had the time to learn. Theo would have shown her, probably, though she knows that Sprinkle was… not your average familiar by any means. Yak feels… distinct from her. They’re connected, surely, but there’s something about him that feels wilder, more like a regular bird. More likely to do what he wants than what Ruby asks of him, though he hasn’t denied any of her requests, yet.

He lands on her knees and Ruby gives him a single stroke of his feathers, then asks him to fly up ahead and scout while they’re resting. Saccharina watches him go silently. Ruby swears, for a flash of a moment, there’s a sense of longing to her half-sister’s face.

She staunchly ignores it.

…

…

Once, when they were nine, Ruby and Jet escaped the castle and snuck out just into the edge of the woods, and tried to go camping.

They had been asking Caramelinda for weeks and she had said no every time. It wasn’t safe, it wasn’t seemly, it wasn’t something that princesses could—or should want—to do. Amethar had been ready and willing from their first request but had started backing down and mumbling things about Caramelinda saying no and avoiding their questions altogether so he didn’t have to actually tell them no. (He always made Caramelinda be the one to say ‘no’). Though they were both pretty sure that they could convince him to take them anyway, they eventually just decided to do it on their own instead.

Jet had packed their bags while Ruby snuck down into the kitchens and stole food for the night and breakfast. Together, they slipped through the secret passageway that they had found a few months prior and waited until the guards changed shifts, then made a break for the woods. They were giddy with excitement, and their faces were flushed from the full-on sprinting and had they flopped down in the grass and laughed, clinging to each other.

Ten minutes later, they hated it.

Neither of them knew how to start a fire, the blankets that they’d grabbed were too thin—easier to carry, but left them freezing and shivering as the night air grew colder—and the food Ruby had stolen was gobbled up in less than five minutes and they were both still hungry, and now they would have to sneak back into the kitchens for breakfast.

“Let’s go back,” Ruby had said. Jet looked at her sidelong, so indignant that Ruby had immediately clamped her mouth shut and gotten up to help her scrounge around for berries or more firewood—neither of which they could find. It had taken an animal noise, so close and so loud and so instantly terrifying that Ruby had burst into tears as Jet screamed, jumping up and grabbing Ruby’s hand and yelling at it to go away, that finally had them giving up. Ruby had been furious that her tears had been the thing to do it, feeling weaker than Jet, who wasn’t scared of anything. Jet, who had been ready to jump up and fight whatever terrifying animal had been about to try and eat them for dinner. Jet, who wasn’t willing to keep up anything, no matter how much she might have wanted it, if Ruby was scared.

When she and Saccharina camp down for the evening, that night with Jet is all that Ruby can think of. Saccharina creates a fire out of nothing, no wood required. She knows which berries are safe and where to find them. She knows which caves and caverns look safe, structurally sound, devoid of animals that might want to come and take their place for the night. She can produce as much food as Ruby wants. Ruby is dirty and uncomfortable, and in pain, but she is safe and taken care of and that is all because of Saccharina.

But it’s not in the way that Jet would be taking care of her, if she were still here. They’re not sisters, no matter what Saccharina says, or wants. They share blood, but they’re not _sisters._ They’re not even friends. They’re allies, at best; bound together by a common goal and a shared desire to survive. They’re the kind of stuff that Ruby has heard of people grabbing onto to keep themselves from drowning after a shipwreck—they’re nothing more to each other than some driftwood.

Bulb above, Ruby misses Jet. She sits there, splayed out beside Saccharina’s fire with a fresh piece of bread in her hands and it hits her suddenly, so sharp beneath her breastbone that she can’t breathe through it; an ache so acute, that it drives home that though she is in the Great Stone Candy Mountains— _her_ mountains, technically—it feels like she’s been stranded alone in a foreign land. She is so sick of climbing through these fucking rocks. She wants to pack up their things and just _go home_. Ruby has spent most of her life so far doing everything that she can to escape the castle walls and the pallor of tragedy that hung over everything inside, and now, she is so homesick for it that her chest hurts. It will never be the same again, even if they can go back home. Someone else has come along and stuck their flags in the castle, claiming it for their own. They’re all trying to rearrange the borders of Candia, to eradicate all magic and her people so that what used to be hers and Jet’s won’t even exist anymore.

She presses her nails into the bread and tries to stave off the tears but she can’t. They just pour out of her, wracking, loud, awful sobs that leave her whole body shaking, gasping for air as the bread in her hands crumbles to nothing in her lap. She wants Jet to be alive. She wants her pops. Bulb above, she wants her _mom._

Absently, Ruby is aware of Saccharina moving almost cautiously towards her—the way one might approach a wild animal. Ruby doesn’t even have it in her to send all of her anger and hate Saccharina’s way right now. She doesn’t know how to even begin to explain what she is feeling in this moment, other than the fact that she is dealing with an absence so loud that she doesn’t think she can even speak. Saccharina must intuit this, somehow. (In the small part of her brain that isn’t overwhelmed by loss, Ruby considers that Saccharina, a girl that grew up alone, without a castle or her family, might actually know a thing or two about loss).

She sits down directly beside Ruby but she thankfully makes no attempts to touch her. Ruby’s glad, because she thinks that if Saccharina tried to do something like hug her right now, she might actually cast a spell higher than a cantrip, and then this night will go from bad to worse.

She doesn’t know how long they sit there while Ruby cries, but there are more stars in the sky once she blinks through her watery eyes and looks back up. Saccharina never moves. Never talks. She just sits there and makes sure that Ruby isn’t alone in it. Finally, Ruby looks up and sees her shadow appearing on the cavern wall across from them, long braid trailing down the back, and she gasps as it waves to her.

“What the fuck?” Saccharina whispers.

Ruby whips her head over towards Saccharina and stops breathing—she is looking directly at the shadow of Jet. Ruby holds her breath tight inside of her as Shadow Jet turns, shifting her—body isn’t right, presence? maybe—towards Saccharina. There isn’t a face there, but Ruby _knows_ that she is smiling. Shadow Jet waves towards Saccharina, too, then she leaps up, doing a backflip before landing and bowing dramatically for effect. Ruby laughs, she can’t help it. The sound pours out of her the same way that her anger, grief, and tears have been—instinct. Shadow Jet leaps up as if invigorated by the sound and flips again, adding a flourish that Ruby knows would leave her grunting on the ground, happily in pain and insisting _wait, no let me try again_ if she could speak. Instead, Shadow Jet dances all around them both, the cave walls providing ample room for her to flip, shake her butt, and make goofy faces and rude hand gestures until they’re both laughing together.

Something crackles inside of Ruby’s skull and she panics, gabbing at Saccharina. Shadow Jet tries to jump forward at the same time that Saccharina’s hand goes to her staff, but then Ruby breathes out. “It’s Theo,” she says. “Or, not _him,_ but—” she trails off, listening to the dry deep unfamiliar voice.

“Hello, Princess Ruby. This is Theo... sort of. Checking in. All is well here. Do you need assistance? Any news to report? See you both soon.”

Ruby turns to Saccharina. “He’s fine, they’re fine, he wants to know if we’re fine.”

Saccharina shrugs and looks slightly dubiously over at Shadow Jet. “We’re fine,” she says.

Ruby relays the message.

When she looks back over at her sisters, the light shifts. Shadow Jet turns and looks off to the distance, and then she looks back and waves again, small and soft and regretful, before disappearing, leaving nothing but Ruby’s regular old shadow in her place.

“NO, JET, WAIT—” Ruby screams, jumping up and trying to search the cave for her.

“Has…” Saccharina clears her throat as Ruby slumps back down in disappointment, sitting opposite of her again. “Has that happened before?”

Ruby just nods. “No one else has seen her, though. She wasn’t… she was just _there_ before. I could tell that it was her, because of the hair.” With her eyes closed, she can say it. “I thought maybe I was going crazy or imagining things that I wanted to be true.” Ruby opens her eyes and looks across the fire at Saccharina imploringly. “Don’t you get _why_ we need the Sugar Plum Fairy now? She’s not really gone! We can get her back!”

Saccharina closes her eyes and all of the energy deflates out of Ruby in an instant.

“No, Ruby,” she says. “We can’t.”

“Fuck you, then,” Ruby snaps, the harshest that her voice has ever been; cut glass. True to her namesake—one of the strongest gemstones around, can cut through almost anything, except maybe a diamond. Saccharina sucks in a watery breath, like she expected the barb, like she was waiting for it. Somewhere in Ruby’s brain, that stings, but the part that wins over, that’s an aching hole of grief and anger and taking over everything else, capitalizes on it. “I’m never going to back your claim to the throne,” she says. “I’m not going to let everything go back to the way it was. I’m not going to let the Pontifex and Keradin and Ciabatta and Cruller get away with it! If you take the throne, and we just go back to the Concord then we’re all just pretending that it’s _fine that they killed Jet!”_

Saccharina looks incredulous. “That’s not what I want at _all,_ ” she scoffs. “Have you been listening to a thing that I’ve said?”

“NO!” Ruby yells, because it’s the truth. She’s barely taken in anything that _anyone_ has said in the last two weeks. But, because she is still feeling petty, adds, “I don’t _care_ what you have to say! I care about getting Jet back and making the people who hurt her pay!”

Saccharina’s lips press into a thin line and she huffs a small puff of air out of her nose. Smoothing down her cape, she rises off the stump that she had been sitting on. “If you’d bothered to pay a modicum of attention to the _actual words that I’ve been saying,_ then you would already know that’s what I want, too. Perhaps I’m not motivated by Jet, in particular, in the same way that you are, but my ire is with the bulbian church and everyone who is aligned with it. The Pontifex, Keradin, everyone who is on their side, is my enemy. They have been long since before I met you, and they will be no matter what you want or don’t want from me. I’d like for you—for my family—to be on my side, but, if not,” she shrugs, “then that’s fine, too.”

Ruby’s tone notches itself like one of her arrows—whittled to a sharp point. As it fires, she reacts to the violence of it before even she understands why, before she realizes what is actually coming out of her mouth. “I’m not your family just because we share the same blood. I already had a sister, and I don’t want another one!” Ruby shouts; or at least that’s how it feels, when it comes out of her all loud and angry, like the words are trying to burn their way up her throat. Ruby swallows, feeling almost on the verge of tears. Her declaration shakes the space between Saccharina and Ruby, magic almost leaking out of them both—electric and crackling. Yak squawks once and pecks at Ruby’s shoulder, almost chiding. The silence that follows eats up all of the air in the cavern and Ruby’s whole body is trembling as she stares over at her half-sister.

Saccharina swallows thickly and when she speaks again a moment later, her voice sounds like it’s been split into pieces, leaking everywhere. _Ruby did that._ _Jet came and got her to laugh and then Ruby got her to cry._

“That’s fine,” she says, pitched and sweet. “All that I’ve been trying to tell you, is that our goals align. Fighting each other instead of our shared enemies is useless. And a distraction.” She lowers herself to the hard ground and does her best to get comfortable, rolling away from Ruby. “Goodnight,” she adds and then Ruby doesn’t hear another sound from her again until the morning.

She curls up into herself, Yak crouching by her head, guilt sinking and settling into her stomach. Saccharina’s crushed face—however briefly it lasted—and the horrible cracked tone of her voice keep playing out in Ruby’s mind as she tries to fall asleep.

_The secrets of Candia are still strong in the Great Stone Candy Mountains. That’s where I am. And it’s where your sister is waiting._

Those words had better have been about Jet. Ruby doesn’t know what will fuel her if they’re not. She doesn’t want to think about it. She wishes that Aunt Lazuli would talk to her again. She wishes that Jet could speak. She wishes that Saccharina never met them at all. She wishes it wasn’t all so complicated. She wishes that they were home.

Ruby rolls over, turning to look at Saccharina’s back. Her chest rises and falls steadily as she sleeps. Her swords and staff right at her side, ready to grab and defend herself in an instant. Ruby has never slept like that—not until recently. She wonders, for perhaps the first time since meeting her, what Saccharina’s life has been like up until now. What must her day to day have entailed, to be so used to sleeping with weapons and armor ready to use at the quickest breath. To have _Enemy of the Faith_ have been a title that she acquired before she even turned twenty-four.

…

…

_day four:_

…

…

Ruby reaches for Saccharina without thinking—an instinct.

They spend a long awkward morning silently going through the motions of eating breakfast and breaking down their camp. Covering their tracks and starting another long day of climbing through the dangerous mountains. The only words that they share are: _these are the highest peaks, it’ll be easier, after today._

Ruby nods and says nothing in response.

Hours later, Saccharina’s words prove to be true. Ruby nearly slips and falls twice. As dexterous as she is, this is a very hard climb and they don’t really have the necessary supplies with them. Ruby still has a slight advantage over Saccharina—she’s lighter overall, less armored, nimbler. But, perhaps it cancels out with how much stronger Saccharina is, more used to prolonged strenuous activity, magic that can make her literally fly. Maybe, it’s a draw.

(Maybe, their skills complement each other, supplying what the other needs and making them a fantastic team. Maybe, Ruby doesn’t want to think about that possible fact, at _all)._

Either Saccharina is distracted, or Ruby’s reflexes are just faster, she’ll never know. But what happens is this:

Saccharina reaches up to grab a foothold and comes away with nothing but sliding rock, her whole weight suddenly off-balanced. A quick, panicked look flashes across her face, and before she can cast the spell that allows her to fly for a moment, before Ruby can even think about it, she grabs for her waist.

Saccharina slips above her and Ruby launches herself at her sister.

All sound ceases to exist; the rock slips and Saccharina lets out a panicked noise and there’s nothing in Ruby’s ears but the madness of her own heartbeat, the colossal sound of something rushing downhill. _I can’t lose another sister._ The thought slips in, unwanted and complicated and rude and Ruby launches herself without thought—the way that Jet would.

They’re both panting heavily, panicked and clawing at each other and the mountain, hanging on and trying to still the beating of their hearts.

It surprises her, but Ruby is the one who speaks first. “Should we try—”

“I’ve got it,” Saccharina says, cutting her off. She looks up, does a bit of quick math, and gauges the distance. “Hang on,” she orders, and for the first time since Saccharina rescued her by the sugar hut, the air crackles with tacky, sugary energy, and a thunderous boom rings out. Ruby is ready for it, this time, and holds on and waits for the feeling of her stomach swooping violently as they disappear and land ninety feet above, on a safe peak.

They both release each other awkwardly and step apart, taking a moment to catch their breaths.

“Thank you,” Saccharina finally says, sincere, yet also like the words are being almost pulled out of her. It means something to her, that Ruby saved her. She’s annoyed about it, given… everything, but it clearly still means something. She could have saved herself, Ruby’s realizing. But—

(It might mean something to Ruby, too).

( _What,_ she’s not entirely sure yet).

Ruby shrugs, sheepish and confused and trying her damnedest not to make a big deal out of it. Everything is still so awkward and she’s still furious and it’s clear that Saccharina still is, too. “We’re even now, I guess,” Ruby says.

It’s the wrong response. She can feel it as soon as the words are out of her mouth, as soon as Saccharina reacts to them; spine going straight and face plastered into that sweet, uncomfortable civility. “So we are,” she says. Then, “we should move quickly. I didn’t use that ability the last few days for a reason. I don’t know if there is anyone around to be alerted to our position, but we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

Ruby opens her mouth, then closes it again twice before saying, “Invisible?”

Saccharina nods curtly. “Good idea.” She disappears before Ruby’s eyes and a moment later, Ruby does the same.

“We can’t—” Ruby works at her bottom lip. “What if one of us—”

“Yell and drop it immediately,” Saccharina’s voice orders from somewhere to Ruby’s left. “Stay on the path, don’t go up ahead to scout. We just need to put distance between ourselves and this spot quickly and quietly. Then we can break for lunch and see where we are.”

It’s the most that she has spoken to Ruby all day.

Ruby nods in response, before she remembers that Saccharina can’t see her anymore and clears her throat. “Okay.”

They climb.

…

…

There is something about climbing, about the way her mind goes numb with her body, one foot after another, using all of her strength to lift herself up. Again, and again, and again, that it becomes almost hypnotic.

It leaves her with a lot of time to think and a million unwanted thoughts easily slipping their way through, forcing her to mull them over.

It was an instinct to grab for Saccharina.

(But that doesn’t have to mean anything other than the fact that Ruby is a good person who wouldn’t just let someone fall to their death. That’s all).

Surely.

The hour passes and their _Invisibility_ drops and no one comes out of the shadows to attack them. They sit down and eat. Methodically, quickly.

Silently.

Ruby chews and decides that the reason she grabbed Saccharina doesn’t have to mean anything other than the fact that she is a good person. That she was behaving like Jet would, if she were here. It doesn’t have to do with _Saccharina_ at all, it has to do with _Ruby_.

“Can you use _Invisibility_ again today?” Saccharina asks, knocking Ruby out of her thoughts.

“Oh, um. Do we need to?”

“Probably not,” Saccharina shrugs. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Okay.” Ruby casts it first this time, watching the way Saccharina’s face pinches a little once she’s out of sight.

“Same deal,” Saccharina calls out.

“Yep.”

They climb.

…

…

The thing about the way it was instinct to reach for Saccharina, though, is that it was always more Jet’s instinct than hers.

And once that thought slips in—

(It hurts, like every thought about Jet does).

 _Invisibility_ drops after an hour and Ruby watches Saccharina appear up ahead of her. She looks down at Ruby once, gives her a slight nod, and then presses on without another word. Ruby spends the rest of the climb looking up at Saccharina. Watching the way that her muscles strain, watching the effort that it takes to relentlessly haul herself up, watching the way that every few steps or so, she checks back down behind her to make sure that Ruby is alright.

(That’s how Jet would be, if she were here).

Ruby sucks in a breath and closes her eyes for a single moment and allows the hurt that comes when she thinks about what it would look like if the three of them were here together. Jet looked at _both_ of them, in the cave. It stings a little, to think that she was reaching out to Saccharina, too. It leaves a gaping jealous pit inside her gut that Ruby is not proud of, but she pushes herself past it.

(Saccharina is basically everything that Jet would have loved to be, someday).

The thought slams into her too fast, and Ruby can’t escape it. Saccharina is a warrior queen, like Jet wanted to be. She’s a woman of the people, like Jet wanted to be. She hates the way the crown is used, like Jet did. She wants to change the way that things Candia in are run, _like Jet did._ Ruby lifts her hand up and hauls herself higher, presses her foot into the stone and climbs behind Saccharina and _knows_ in her bones, the same way that she always knew everything about Jet that if Jet were alive right now, _she would love the idea of a big sister like Saccharina._ Jet would be thrilled to not have to be the first in line for the throne. She would be so excited to fight in her sister’s name for their family. She would want to be her right-hand soldier, goofily trying to fight Gooey for the position. She would have _wanted_ Saccharina, period.

(She might even be a little bit mad at Ruby right now—wherever she is—for the way that Ruby has been treating her).

It’s that thought that pushes the guilt away and the anger spills right back in, but Jet’s not here to yell at. Ruby can’t argue with her because _Jet is dead._ So, none of this even matters. Ruby has no idea how Jet would react if their situations were reversed. If Ruby were the dead one, skulking about in shadows while Jet was here, mourning and vibrating with the need for revenge. Maybe, in that case, she wouldn’t be able to find it in her heart to reach out to Saccharina, either. Maybe she’d be just as angry and numb and singularly focused as Ruby feels. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to look past that, either.

(There’s a sinking part of Ruby that doubts it, though. Jet was always quicker with kindness than Ruby ever was).

…

…

When they bed down to camp for the night, Ruby feels a shift inside of her chest that surprises and annoys her as she chews the food Saccharina makes and passes over. Her sister must note the shift on her face, somehow. Ruby takes the food with a quietly mumbled _thank you_ and Saccharina looks over at her for a moment and then blanches.

She recovers quickly. She’s far more used to schooling her feelings in front of others than Ruby is, but the flash of it is enough and now Ruby has to sit there and wonder what to do about it.

She has to figure out what it means, what she _wants_ it to mean. Because the truth of all of this is that no matter what Ruby feels about Saccharina—hatred, jealousy, annoyance, curiosity, protective. It doesn’t actually matter—what matters, the _only_ thing that matters right now—is avenging Jet.

Everything else has to wait. _(Right?)_

…

…

_day five_

…

…

When Ruby wakes up the next morning, she can’t seem to stop the urge to ask Saccharina questions about herself. It’s _practical,_ she decides. This woman—sister or not—has a claim to the throne and it’s prudent to have as much information about her and her intentions as possible.

Plus, it’s possible that Ruby hasn’t been listening properly and jumped to some conclusions on her own, and… as much as it galls her to admit, even to herself, Saccharina was right—fighting each other _is_ a distraction to both of their goals. Ruby wants Ciabatta dead. Saccharina has no problems with that, so—

“Where did you grow up?” Ruby asks before wincing at the look Saccharina gives her. “I mean, you said it was — how old were you when you went to the orphanage? I meant — why, your mother — what—”

“What are you actually trying to ask me?” Saccharina snaps, not entirely unkindly, just… full of frustration and clearly with her guard up.

“What happened to your mom?” Ruby lands on. It seems like the most important question. Ruby remembers the look on Pops’ face when they had mentioned Catherine Ghee—she’s never seen the look on his face like that in relation to her own mother; so, she must have meant something to him.

Saccharina’s whole face pinches as she huffs a breath out through her nose, keeping her gaze locked forward on the trail. “She didn’t want a magical blasphemous child, I suppose.” She shrugs as she says this, trying to feign an air of indifference, but it’s obvious by the tense set to her shoulders, the way that she is gritting her teeth, everything about her posture, that this is an old and painful wound. Ruby doesn’t respond right away; she thinks it over quietly as they climb in tandem.

Ruby cannot imagine a world where Pops denies her. Leaves her. Doesn’t _want_ her or is afraid of her and what she can do—she doesn’t even know how to pretend it. When she really tries, she can’t even truly fathom her mother doing it, either—despite her every frustration, despite Ruby and Jet… wondering sometimes if she actually loved them—she still can’t imagine her ever abandoning them. Not _really._ Ruby wonders how the two things can match up—the look on her father’s face whenever people bring up Catherine, compared to the look on Saccharina’s. She wonders how to fill in that gap, where the truth really lies.

“I’m sorry,” Ruby finally says, nearly a full five minutes later. Saccharina blanches, she must have assumed that Ruby wasn’t going to answer at all. Given the last few days, Ruby supposes that she doesn’t blame her. “She shouldn’t have done that. Especially not because you had magic. I mean, magic is so _cool.”_

“Most people don’t think so,” Saccharina says, voice somewhat clipped.

“Is that what they thought, in the orphanage? That magic was… bad?”

“Yes,” Saccharina says, curtly. She doesn’t elaborate.

Ruby looks up and sees her shadow, braid swinging as she walks, and can’t help the small smile that spills out onto her face. Shadow Jet flips her off and then waves at Saccharina imploringly while Ruby huffs.

(Okay, so she’s going to have to work harder than that, then).

“Moms are hard,” Ruby says, like an idiot. Saccharina looks over at her like she’s grown a second head. Shadow Jet slams her palm into her face.

“I happen to like your mother,” Saccharina says. “I don’t know why you don’t. She’s there, and it’s clear that she cares for you.”

“Well yeah, _now,_ ” Ruby snaps on instinct. “Now that Jet’s _dead._ ”

Saccharina goes quiet and so does Ruby. She’s terrible at this. She wishes that Jet could talk. Suddenly, through truly the stupidest bit of inspiration she has probably ever had in all her life so far, Ruby asks, “How strong are your thighs?”

Saccharina sputters and comes to a full stop. “What? My _thighs?_ ”

Shadow Jet is losing her shit to off Ruby’s left and Ruby’s face suddenly goes—if possible—redder. “I… it’s… Jet said… I just was trying to…” Ruby huffs, embarrassed and annoyed at herself. In a quick ramble, she explains, “before everything went to shit when we were at the jousting competition in Comida, we met this woman named Anabelle from the Dairy Islands. Jet really liked her. I mean,” Ruby laughs, remembering, “actually, she sort of accidentally insulted her in front of everyone while trying to… I don’t know flirt? maybe? be her friend?” Ruby shrugs. “But, anyway, she was an awesome fighter. Jet wanted to be a fighter like Aunt Rococca. And Annabelle was really strong, and so Jet joked about her thighs to Pops—she did this cool move kinda like using them—and he looked like he wanted to melt into the floor, and it was super funny. And I just… I dunno,” she trails off and feels stupid for even trying to explain it. Shadow Jet kicks out at her and Saccharina catches the movement, suddenly being alerted to her presence. Ruby’s embarrassed enough already, so she might as well lean into it. “I don’t know,” she directs towards her shadow. “We’re you flirting terribly or being equally as terrible at making a friend?”

Shadow Jet flips her off again.

Saccharina’s face splits into a small grin that she quickly tries to suppress. Taking a chance, she asks, “Anabelle Cheddar?” Ruby nods and Saccharina laughs lightly. “Well, if you were trying to flirt, then you’ve got good taste,” Saccharina directs towards Ruby’s shadow.

Ruby doesn’t know how to explain it, but she just _knows_ (it’s comforting, that death didn’t take that away from them, at least) and she doesn’t know _why_ she translates for Saccharina but she _does._ “She’s groaning,” Ruby tells her, a bit teasingly. “She’s embarrassed.”

Shadow Jet kicks at her again and this time, Saccharina doesn’t suppress her grin at all as Ruby laughs, dodging out of the way. Shadow Jet flips them both off this time, one hand for each of them. “Don’t be embarrassed,” Saccharina assures her. “I was commending you on your taste.”

“You know Anabelle?” Ruby asks.

Saccharina nods. “I’m from the Dairy Isles too, remember? She’s only a little bit older than me, I remember when she abdicated the throne to her cousin.”

“Have you met Primsey?”

“No,” Saccharina says. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“She’s really nice,” Ruby says, walking with a little more vigor as they come upon flatter, easier ground. “Jet saved her life from an assassination attempt up in the crow’s keep of a ship!” Shadow Jet nods emphatically towards Saccharina, puffing out her chest—sort of. “I think she’d be an easier girlfriend than someone way out of your league and almost nine years older than you,” Ruby teases, sticking her tongue out at Jet. Jet tries to reach up and smack her—but she’s only a shadow. Both of them realize it at the same time—they’d almost forgotten. Ruby looks down at her arm and feels nothing and Shadow Jet stills, looking down at the shape of her palm sadly. Ruby doesn’t look up at Saccharina, but she can feel her gaze on them. Ruby almost tries to grab for Jet to comfort her, but that would be stupid. “We’ll fix it, Jet,” she promises instead. “We’ll get to the Sugar Plum Fairy and she’ll fix it.”

“Ruby—” Saccharina starts.

Ruby ignores her. “She said that she can fix it. Okay? It’ll be okay. I’ll save you this time. I’m due, anyway.”

Jet shakes her head forcefully and Ruby frowns. Jet huffs out in frustration—or what would be a close enough approximation of it for a shadow. She turns and points at Saccharina and nods, then points at Ruby, and shakes her head.

“What?” Ruby hates this, hates not knowing what Jet means, she _always_ knows what Jet means.

“I don’t think that Jet trusts the Sugar Plum Fairy, either,” Saccharina says, tentative.

Ruby rounds on her immediately, fury building. “Shut up! You have no idea what she means, don’t put words into her mouth. You didn’t even know her.”

Jet nods again, pointing over at Saccharina. She leaves Ruby’s side and moves to stand behind Saccharina, nodding and pointing and looking sad. Saccharina doesn’t look happy to be right, to have Jet’s approval—not in this. There isn’t any hint of the smug gloating from a few days ago, there’s only pity for Ruby.

Ruby hates it.

“Well, both of you can go and fuck off, then,” Ruby says. “I’m saving you whether you want me to or not, Jet. So, get over it and yell at me later. When you’re not dead anymore.”

Jet flies at Ruby. She doesn’t know how else to describe it. The shadow grows and grows, then it slams towards her, sending a horrible shiver down Ruby’s spine before it disappears, leaving nothing but her regular old shadow in its place. Ruby exhales and tries not to cry.

“Let’s eat,” Saccharina says, a moment later. Wisely changing the subject. Ruby wishes that she would pick a fight with her instead. She wants to hit something.

…

…

They don’t talk about Jet again. Ruby almost doesn’t talk to Saccharina at _all,_ but that feels worse, somehow. The silence between them isn’t easy to ignore anymore. It isn’t comfortable, it’s tense and thick and choking and Ruby can’t stand it. Jet is wrong about this, about the Sugar Plum Fairy, but, she might not have been wrong about Saccharina and Ruby—not entirely.

“What was the orphanage like?” Ruby asks.

Saccharina stills. There’s a single wince and then it’s gone, that sickly sweet smile plastered back onto her face Ruby is realizing that she uses it when she is trying to stop herself from saying something she shouldn’t. Or, thinks that she shouldn’t. It’s starting to grate on Ruby, but… not for the reasons that she would have thought.

(She hates that Saccharina is using it on her; choosing her words carefully around her own sister).

(And when _that_ thought slams into her, Ruby nearly doubles over in shock).

_This is all Jet’s fucking fault._

Saccharina stops walking and studies Ruby for a tenuous moment. “Do you actually want to know?”

Ruby doesn’t answer her right away. It should be a simple question, but the answer feels significant for reasons that Ruby hasn't entirely sorted her way through yet. She thinks it over, considering, as they walk up the flatter path in more of a stroll than their progress has been so far. “Yes,” she says, deciding.

Saccharina looks over at her again, guarded as she studies Ruby for… what, she’s not sure. Sincerity, maybe. Ruby tries to project it—she feels it, for the first time in a while. She’s still not… she at least wants to _know_ what she is dealing with, with regards to Saccharina. Right now, all she’s working with is that Saccharina is six years older than them. Pops’ loved Catherine, once upon a time. Saccharina seems to hate her. She lived in an orphanage for some undetermined amount of time, and they hated magic. Aunt Lazuli spoke to her—wanted her. She somehow got a band of marauders and pirates to back her cause. And, she is annoying, and she wants to be Ruby’s sister.

(Maybe. She _did,_ back before Ruby was a total brat).

She is tired of being full of anger twenty-four seven. It’s exhausting. She hasn’t even been doing it for more than a few weeks, and it's eating her up from the inside.

Saccharina must decide that Ruby is being genuine. That, or she just wants to be able to explain it, regardless. Ruby’s not sure. She watches as Saccharina sucks in a watery breath and then does not look back over at Ruby once for the next hour of their journey.

Saccharina doesn’t hold anything back, but she explains it all in a rote, monotone voice. She tells Ruby the small things that she remembers about her mother—being left at the nunnery, seeing Aunt Lazuli in reflections, being _promised_ that it was good, what she could do, that Lazuli wanted her, saw her as family, as someone hopeful, and important, and worthy of love.

And then Saccharina tells Ruby what the nuns did to her in order to get rid of Lazuli, to try and take Saccharina’s magic away. Her voice cracks, suddenly, as she explains the feeling of reaching for Lazuli and finding nothing in her place. Ruby sucks in a sharp breath and presses her eyes closed, trying not to cry. Saccharina just stands there, her shoulders shaking but no tears falling, and Ruby has to force herself not to look away from her. It hurts. It’s harder to keep looking; it’s almost like the feeling of watching an elderly person suddenly slip and fall, or a child hurt or being sick all over themselves, the surprise and betrayal of the horrible new sensation—Ruby wants nothing more than to recoil from it, feels ashamed to even be witnessing it, and overwhelmingly aching with sympathy for her sister, all at the same time.

 _They cut Lazuli away from her._ Ruby wants to vomit.

It’s suddenly apparent, just how wrong Ruby has gotten everything with her head full of nothing but revenge. She looks down at the space between the two of them and thinks that regardless of their shared royal blood, Ruby has lived with all of the accouterments that come with being a royal member of the House of Rocks; her parents might not be in love with each other, but there is _love_ between them. Pops’ love for Ruby and Jet has never felt unwavering. Her mother’s love wasn’t ever conditional—Ruby and Jet were just privileged brats who wanted to be able to do anything that they desired, and their mother was trying to keep them safe and show them how to move about in the world. The duties that a person with royal blood—leaders—should maintain. Lapin and Theo weren’t being stuffy, boring nuisances, they were trying to arm Ruby and Jet with information, tactics, leadership, kindness for people other than themselves. Lazuli didn’t come to Ruby because she is special, she came because Ruby was her family, just as she would for Saccharina, or Jet, if she had magic inside her the same way.

Lazuli saw no difference between Saccharina and Ruby, and they just cut her away. They were hateful and wrong, and they didn’t care.

Ruby has been hateful and wrong a lot lately, too.

Ruby’s fingers flinch against her thighs and she stops herself from stepping forward to hug Saccharina—it would be an entirely stupid idea. For one, Ruby has been nothing but awful to her and she hasn’t earned the right, and clearly, Saccharina looks ready to throw Ruby across the meadow if she even tries. She doesn’t want pity. She told the truth as clearly as she could manage because she wants Ruby to _understand._ Because Ruby hasn’t been trying to at all. In fairness, the single worst thing that could have ever happened to her, just happened, and she’s been preoccupied. Consumed. But—

It’s not fair. Being hurt isn’t an excuse to hurt other people too, and… Saccharina hasn’t done anything to deserve the way Ruby has been treating her. It’s not her fault that Jet is dead. It’s not her fault that Pops’ never found her. It’s not her fault that her mother was a coward and gave her away. It’s not her fault that the nuns were bitchy, cruel hags. It’s not her fault that Lazuli can’t communicate with her anymore. It’s not her fault that her claim to the throne is stronger than Ruby’s or Pops’. It’s not her fault that she doesn’t know how to act like a leader or a noble yet.

It’s not her fault that she is Ruby’s sister.

This realization is horrible and painful and exhausting all at once. It certainly doesn’t fix everything. The fact remains that Ruby doesn’t care about anything but avenging Jet and getting her back right now. Ruby still doesn’t want another sister. She just… understands better now. This is the worst that her life has ever been, but Saccharina’s life has been full of this awful, gaping pain more than once, and Ruby doesn’t have the right to add to it needlessly. There are still a million things that she doesn’t know about Saccharina. How did she meet Gooey? How did she become a pirate queen? How did she teach herself to wield her magic? How did she get so many people to follow her so quickly and quietly? What had been her plan, before Pops’ attempted assassination? Ruby swallows, clenching her fingers into fists and then releasing them. She doesn’t ask any of the questions that are fighting to crawl their way out of her throat; she doesn’t feel like she has earned the right, doesn’t feel capable of accepting the answers right now, and Saccharina doesn’t look capable of providing them at the moment, either.

Instead, Ruby wills Yak to do what she cannot. She doesn’t even realize that she’s done it—that she has thought of comforting Saccharina in some way—until Yak flies down and perches himself onto Saccharina’s shoulder, nestling in. It surprises them both and Ruby gasps at the same time that Saccharina jerks in surprise.

“They shouldn’t have done that,” Ruby tells her, finally. “I’m glad that you made them pay for it.”

Saccharina hesitates, face searching Ruby’s as Yak nestles against her cheek. “So am I,” she says. She opens her mouth to say something else, but she can’t make it work.

Wordlessly, they both sit down and each lunch. Yak stays with Saccharina, and Ruby finds that she can’t quite scrounge up feelings of jealousy about it, no matter how hard she tries.

…

…

After that, it’s sort of like a dam breaking, they’ve started talking about things that _matter_ , and they can’t seem to stop.

It’s a tentative, awkward, and unpleasant thing, to be sure. But, it won’t just up and go away now that it’s happened. Now that the initial tension between them has been released, they can’t shove it back. Saccharina tells Ruby about her life in the orphanage and Ruby tells Saccharina about her life in the castle and they both stew, and hate each other a little less, and also hate each other a little more.

It’s strange, to talk about Pops when Saccharina asks about him. It’s too painful and too raw, when she asks about Jet. Equally, there are questions Ruby asks that Saccharina chafes at and won’t answer, or will find a way to dance around, rather than answer outright.

When Saccharina asks about Amethar a bit more, tentatively, Ruby doesn’t know how to answer. She doesn’t know how to talk about him with Saccharina because she has worshipped Pops her whole life, and understanding of her bratty behavior or not, the reasons for it haven’t just up and disappeared. Ruby is still so, so angry, and so, so sad, and just because she isn’t directing the full force of that unfairly onto Saccharina anymore doesn’t mean that it’s left her.

She feels weird about it all now. She doesn’t know what to make of the way that he sided with Ruby when they met first met Saccharina, doesn’t know what to make about the way that he acted, the way that he screamed “Enough” at Saccharina and threw his crown at her feet, knowing everything she that knows about Saccharina’s life, now. Now that she knows what Saccharina had been trying to explain while Ruby was being a grieving, angry, unyielding brat and her father was yelling and cutting Saccharina off. Ruby doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that neither of them even _tried_ to listen.

(Granted, someone who they had trusted practically their whole lives, someone they loved, someone who was basically family had just tried to kill Amethar and _had_ killed Jet. Not being trusting or willing to listen to a new person, even one who claimed to be family, makes _sense._ It just… feels different, with more context).

As they walk and climb, Ruby tries to put herself into Saccharina’s place, thinking how Ruby would feel if Pops ever dismissed _her_ like that. She wants to defend him because she knows why he did it, why it all hurts so much, why he wouldn’t just trust Saccharina outright, but, in the same breath, it sort of feels like she can’t fully defend his actions. If it had been Ruby, finally finding her family after so many years of being alone and Pops had yelled at her and dismissed her and cut her off and said he didn’t like her, before he even _tried_ to know her, then Ruby would be crushed. So, it’s a strange, confusing mangle of conversations—as all of theirs have been this whole fucking time.

At least this time, nobody casts _Shocking Grasp_ at each other.

Progress, surely.

…

…

The Sugar Plum Fairy appears in front of her and Ruby nearly slips on a bit of mud. For a second, Ruby thinks she is the only one who can see her, she’s surprised that she can at all, before, she was nothing more than a voice inside Ruby’s head.

But when Saccharina hisses and steps protectively in front of Ruby, putting herself between them, Yak swooping anxiously back and forth in front of them both, Ruby knows that she is really there. And that Saccharina can see her, too.

“Please,” Ruby says quickly, trying to push forward. “Tell her—tell her about Jet. Tell her what you told me about—”

The Sugar Plum fairy tilts her head to the side, curiously. It is an impossibly inhuman action. Ruby doesn’t know how to explain _why,_ only that it absolutely is, and something about it, something about the way that she is studying the two of them makes the fine hairs on Ruby’s skin prickle upwards; one of those things that goes straight past rational thought towards primal revulsion. Like an animal whose hackles are raised, ready for fight or flight. The air crackles with the taste of sugar and Ruby can’t tell if it’s coming from her sister or the god before them.

“Why are you going to my temple?” The Sugar Plum Fairy asks, in that airy voice that Ruby has recently become familiar with.

Saccharina scowls. “Why did you tell Ruby that you can bring Jet back to life?”

“Because she was in pain, and I can fix it.”

 _“See,”_ Ruby insists, tugging at Saccharina’s arm before she even realizes that she is doing it. “I told you—”

“Stop lying,” Saccharina hisses through her teeth.

“Am I lying?” the Sugar Plum Fairy asks, doing the head tilt again that makes Ruby flinch. Saccharina’s hands are balled into tight fists and Ruby’s hands haven’t left her arm, and the god swells, ballooning and rising and growing almost… menacing. Ruby has found the entity confounding, unworldly, and powerful, but she’s never felt _frightened_ in her presence before. Before Ruby can decide if that is even the emotion that’s washing over her, Saccharina shoves Ruby behind her fully and balls of fire appear in each fist.

“Fuck you,” Saccharina hisses.

The Sugar Plum Fairy’s eyes flash and she smiles, all teeth. “I’ll see you soon,” she says, directed towards Ruby, and then vanishes.

“Why did you _do that?”_ Ruby whines.

“We need to leave _now,”_ Saccharina says, making to grab for Ruby. Ruby dodges out of the way and shoves her off, Yak squawking unhappily above them. “Ruby, I am not fucking around,” Saccharina says, in what must be the voice that she uses to rein in her marauders. “We need to get to the temple now.”

“Why did you make her—” Ruby doesn’t get to finish her thought. Saccharina is undeterred, acting on pure instinct, and she jumps forward and gets a fistful of Ruby’s shirt, and the next thing Ruby knows, her stomach is lurching.

It’s a different spell this time. The now-familiar thunderous accompaniment doesn’t ring out and when Ruby lands shakily on her legs and tries to breathe, they’re much further away. She starts to tell Saccharina off, starts to ask her how she did that, starts to scream and all of it is swallowed down as Saccharina says, “I learned a new spell,” by way of explanation, and then it’s happening all over again.

“Stop it!” Ruby hollers when they land a second time. Saccharina promptly ignores her, and then they’re _Thunderstepping_ in another quick succession.

It’s loud anyway, so Ruby just spends the entire time hollering profanities at her sister for good measure.

When Saccharina is finally tapped out of her (powerful, blub above she is _so_ powerful) magic for the day, she is panting and exhausted and entirely spent and they have traveled a good few miles. They had already been making good ground today, so they’re basically at the foot of the temple, now.

Ruby shoves at Saccharina. “Fuck you,” she says, bitter.

“We needed to get—”

“I don’t care.”

They stand apart from each other and shake, with anger, adrenaline, and fear, as Yak circles above them. He disappears from view and then returns about ten minutes later and Ruby knows what he is telling her without him having to form the words in her mind. She doesn’t know how that works, this strange wordless telepathic communication, she just… sort of knows what he means and he knows the same in turn of her.

“They’re not here yet,” Ruby says, translating for Saccharina begrudgingly. “But the stone circle is about a hundred feet up that way, the temple about another hundred more past that.”

“Are you done being mad at me?” Saccharina asks.

Ruby channels her mother. “Not even remotely.”

Saccharina rolls her eyes and makes them a campfire and some food. It’s nearly dark. Probably, it _was_ smart to use her magic to get them closer, sooner, but there is no unearthly way that Ruby is about to admit that to her out loud.

Ruby sits down in front of the fire and eats numbly. The tension from the afternoon is gone, and in its place, is the newfound tension of their relationship now that they’ve actually… talked to each other. They’ve spent the last five days alone together, but when they wake up tomorrow, Ruby’s parents—what’s left of her family—will be here to help them search the temple. In the morning, Ruby might have Jet back. In the morning, everything is going to change.

Ruby doesn’t know how to feel about that.

Sitting across from her, it’s clear that Saccharina doesn’t, either.

“I don’t trust her,” she says, suddenly breaking the tense silence that’s hanging over them. “I know that you want her to —” Saccharina closes her eyes. “I hope that she _can_ bring Jet back to you. I’ve wanted — I wanted to meet you _both._ When I dreamt of meeting my family, I wanted both of you to be there. But, Ruby — Lazuli _didn’t trust her._ I’m not saying this to hurt you. I’m not making it up. I’ve read everything she ever wrote that I could get my hands on. Her own personal journals and scrolls and scribbles and she _didn’t._ Please, just…” she sighs, almost resigned. “Just remember that, and be careful. Just don’t trust her blindly because you need something. That’s how people manipulate you.”

“I’m not an idiot or a child!” Ruby snaps. “I know that.”

“I’m not saying that you are,” Saccharina says and Yak nips at Ruby’s ear—it stings just a bit and she swats at him.

He does it again, harder this time. “Yak!” Ruby snaps. “Stop it.”

He does it a third time and then swoops out of reach before Ruby can swat at him properly. _Asshole._

Ruby tries—for the first time, really—to explain how it feels to be alive while Jet is dead. She tries to explain the fear that had crept up her throat until she had choked when she saw the dagger slide into Jet’s back; when she had pushed Ruby towards the window and told her to run; when she felt the necklace break on the bridge, lifeless; the hole that is eating her up from the inside, the way her pinkie finger _hurts,_ all the time, the way that she can’t quite seem to get a full breath anymore, no matter how hard she tries.

Saccharina listens patiently, doesn’t interrupt Ruby once, and when Ruby finally looks up, shaking with tears, she can see that Saccharina is crying, too. They don’t get up. They don’t move closer towards each other, but they meet each other’s eyes. Ruby understands now, how Saccharina felt when they cut Lazuli from her, and now, Saccharina understands how Ruby feels, that Ciabatta stole Jet. It’s not the same feeling, but it’s close enough in its hurt that they can both look across the magical fire, and meet each other’s eyes, and find some sort of understanding in each other.

“Like I said,” Saccharina finally says, a few minutes later, her voice scratchy with emotion. “I hope that she can bring Jet back too, but I don’t trust her.”

“Okay,” Ruby says.

“Okay,” Saccharina echoes.

Their eyes meet across the fire again, and then they both settle down to go to sleep.

…

…

_day six_

…

…

Ruby doesn’t see her mother or Uncle Joren when her family appears in the stone circle the next morning.

“What—” she starts to ask but is cut off by her father barreling into her and tugging her into a fierce, almost painful hug.

Theo walks directly over to Saccharina and seems to have to stop himself from checking her for wounds, instead, he gives her a nod and a warm smile. “I’m glad to see you all in one piece, Your majesty.” Ruby catches the flinch that Saccharina gives him at the title, but she quickly schools her face and gives him an awkward smile in return.

“You too, Sir Theobald.”

“Hey, Sundae Mama!” Liam yells out happily. Ruby rolls her eyes but she notices the way that Saccharina lights up at the ridiculous moniker, and at the familiarity and delight Liam sends her way. It’s annoying, the same as it was over a week ago, but it… grates less than she expects it to.

Similarly, Cumulous walks over to Saccharina and gives her a slight bow. Gooey, Swifty, and JonBon attach themselves to Saccharina’s sides and suddenly, it’s only Ruby and Amethar standing alone off to the side—he still hasn’t let go. Ruby has to push him away gently. She waits, expectantly, but he never moves towards Saccharina. He doesn’t even really look at her. Instead, he looks at Theo and nods.

“Let’s go.”

The disappointment and confusion settles itself into Ruby’s gut without her permission.

She cannot shake the feeling of being watched as they slowly walk through the quiet, icy temple. Saccharina casts _Invisibility_ on herself before they even get close, and Ruby finds herself tense at the thought of not being able to see her once again. Ruby blends into the shadows every chance that she gets. She watches her father’s face go stark white as he looks up at the walls and her whole body freezes over with anticipation and panic, but nothing happens. He shakes it off and presses on.

When they come upon a vast library, Ruby cannot find it in herself to be as excited as Saccharina, Liam, and Theo are at the sight. Cumulous catches her eye and he says, “This is obviously magical and wondrous,” but he sounds like he is trying to assure himself more than anything else. “However, I will admit, that I was hoping for more of an _armory_ armory,” he adds.

“Found it!” Swifty’s grating, high voice calls out. He lifts up a handful of swords in triumph and then starts attaching a ridiculous amount of them to his belt. Cumulous looks like he is about to burst into tears.

Ruby sees her shadow appear on the wall and she yells out instinctually. “Jet!”

“I told you not to come in here,” the Sugar Plum Fairy’s airy voice suddenly fills the room. Jet looks like she is trying to run over towards Ruby, all panic.

“No,” Ruby says, her voice suddenly sounding very, very small. “You said… _please,_ you said that you can bring Jet back.”

The Sugar Plum Fairy appears before them in a flash. But—

She looks different, somehow. Ruby can’t put her finger on what it is, exactly, only that she knows there is a difference to be found. Maybe it’s because of Saccharina’s warning, maybe it’s because of the way that Shadow Jet is acting, all agitated and like she’s struggling to keep herself looking solid, flashing back and forth between Ruby’s regular old shadow and a glimmer of herself.

“That’s not quite what I said,” the Sugar Plum Fairy says. “I told you that I could take _you_ to _her_.” She smiles at Ruby and it’s inhuman and far more anxiety-inducing than the hopeful and calming look that she was clearly going for.

“No…” Ruby struggles. “You… what does that mean, then?”

The Sugar Plum Fairy’s head tilts unnaturally. “I’ll take you to her,” she says, then looks across the group. “I’ll take all of you to them.” She locks eyes with Pops. “Your sisters miss you.”

Amethar looks deeply uncomfortable and confused. Theo and Cumulous are sharing quick, calculated, and nervous looks back and forth between them, and Ruby can’t stop looking over at her shadow, a sick certainty growing in the pit of her stomach.

“I will make all of you safe. I can take you to a pure place,” the Sugar Plum Fairy is saying, but the words are starting to slip out of Ruby’s ears. Things are going a bit fuzzy, tilted to the left just slightly, off-balance, in the way that means she’s about to fall. Ruby closes her eyes and tries to remain upright. Aunt Lazuli didn’t trust this deity. Saccharina doesn’t trust her. Their magic all _comes_ from her, so how can she be—

Ruby opens her eyes and looks across the room at her shadow. Jet is pacing like an animal trapped in a cage. Ruby’s heart beats a frantic staccato in her chest and she looks up at the Sugar Plum Fairy. “Did you kill my sister?” she asks, cutting her rosy sweet tirade off mid-word.

The Sugar Plum Fairy makes a face that Ruby couldn’t describe, even if she had years to try. “Would you have come here if she were still alive?”

Ruby draws her bow. There’s nothing in her ears but the madness of her own heartbeat, the colossal sound of something rushing downhill. The world draws into a single point and everything else around her disappears. Ruby doesn’t hesitate, the arrow releases and strikes true and what happens next happens very quickly.

The Sugar Plum Fairy changes shape. Subconsciously, Ruby knew that what they had been seeing hadn’t been her true form—she is a god—but, being confronted with the massive, misshapen, unblinking form of it is different from _knowing_ that it might be there, hidden away. The color of the room changes with her, purples and blues and pinks and oranges that swirl around in a fog and make Ruby feel a little dizzy; colors so hard you could bash your knuckles on them. The Sugar Plum Fairy’s smile goes fixed and stiff, but it doesn’t slip; not once through the entire fight. Somehow, that is more terrifying than anything else that happens.

Except that it’s not. Not at all. Cumulous dies. So quickly that Ruby almost doesn’t realize until Saccharina has pulled him back from the brink, Ruby, carelessly trying to yank him upwards with a rope, of all things. (And it’s still _so irritating,_ whenever Saccharina does something better than Ruby).

The air around them changes, temperature dropping dangerously low as the Sugar Plum Fairy fights them off, almost with ease. The shadows on the walls dance and Ruby tries not to lose focus. It’s only when she hears Jet, hears her beautiful voice for the first time in over a month, that she hesitates.

_It’s true, but I don’t know if it’s good._

The last words that her sister will ever say to her; she breathes in, wet and heavy from the tears that she doesn’t want to fall. If they start now, they’ll never stop, they’ll all die together in this room from grief. Ruby’s not going to let Jet’s warning plea go to waste.

Saccharina frees a cinnamon _dragon_ from the freezing room and the Sugar Plum Fairy’s fixed smile finally disappears. Her hundreds of eyes pull into tight slits and they all focus on Ruby’s half-sister. Saccharina ignores her and turns to Ruby. “Do you trust me?” she asks.

 _Does_ she? It’s the million-dollar question, after everything. Does Ruby trust her? In a single blink, she thinks back on the last week and a half. Saccharina has saved her life, more than once. She has tried to make a connection with Ruby, with Amethar, with Caramelinda, with Theo, Cumulous, Liam, Joren. She gave them food, she gave them shelter, she’s trying to get them back to their throne—sort of.

She also has her own goals. This dragon, this temple, this god, the bulbian faith—she has her own plans entirely separate from the Rocks family. In the grand scheme of things, Ruby and her family would be a happy bonus to her plans, not the end goal.

Does that matter?

Does Ruby _want it_ to matter?

Would it matter to Jet?

Does any of that matter _right now?_

No, Ruby decides. If the last week has shown her anything, it’s that at the very least, Ruby can trust Saccharina in a fight. Right now, their goals align. Ruby meets her sister’s eyes and nods, holding out her hand, she takes the offering Saccharina is giving her and they disappear in a flash together, landing in front of the deity that has helped Ruby and saved her and watched over her family for thousands of years and took the only thing that really matters away without a second thought.

Ruby pulls out Jet’s sword, looks her god straight in one of her many eyes, and kills her.

She sags with the weight of everything a moment later. The Sugar Plum Fairy dies loudly, the air gets colder and it’s harder to breathe, and then it’s over and they are standing in a freezing temple with their whole world changed.

Again.

Ruby looks up for her shadow, desperately. Each of her aunts appears in front of them, one by one saying goodbye as the air gets colder and colder. Lazuli looks Saccharina in the eyes and smiles, so warm and so loving that it hurts; it almost feels like something that Ruby shouldn’t be privy to. She watches her father’s face do something deeply complicated as he watches the two of them. Ruby gets one single last moment to look at Jet—her Jet, not a shadow but her brilliant, protective, impulsive, goofy sister. She meets Ruby’s eyes and smiles, softly, apologetic and proud and demanding all at once and Ruby can’t smile back. She tries but she can’t manage it. Instead, she nods. She can’t make her voice work but she can think _hard_ and Jet will know. Jet always knows.

 _I’ll be okay. I love you. It’s alright._ Ruby doesn’t know if any of it is true. Honestly, she’s doubtful about all of it except for the second thing, but she wills herself to believe it all, for that single moment so that wherever she is about to go now, Jet won’t worry.

_I’ll be okay. I love you. It’s alright._

The colors surrounding them swirl again, the air growing warmer, and then one by one, they’re gone. Ruby watches Jet until the very last moment. And then keeps on watching the moment after she disappears.

_I’ll be okay._

_I love you._

_It’s alright._

…

…

There is a tenuous moment after the battle where Ruby almost shoves Saccharina off one of the precarious temple rises.

Jet is _gone,_ well and truly now. Forever. Her sister is never going to come back, and Ruby is alone, and this half-sister is nettling her, and Ruby just killed a god and she feels… like anger boiled over. Like she is balancing on a tightrope, one wrong move and she’s going to fall. Jet is dead and Ruby is alive and Saccharina is here to stay; the truth sits sour and heavy on her tongue. Their temporary truce of the last weeks feels like it’s ballooned up and one more breath and it will pop. Saccharina’s face is hard and mean and full of tension as she meets Ruby’s gaze—Ruby knows that her own is the same.

A mirror image. But it’s the wrong mirror. The wrong sister. Ruby thinks about how good it would feel to just shove Saccharina and shut her up. She thinks about the satisfaction of it, like slipping Jet’s blade into the god that killed her.

Then she thinks about how petty and childish that feeling would be. A momentary balm that would only add more hurt into a world already chock full of it. She thinks about the look on Saccharina’s face as she explained the way that the nuns cut her connection to Lazuli out of her. She thinks about the look on her aunt’s face only a few moments before, smiling down at Saccharina, warm and loving and familiar. Unquestioning their connection. Claiming it, in front of Amethar and Ruby and all of them. She thinks about Jet, a shadow of herself, trying to do flips across a cavern wall to get both of her sisters to laugh.

Ruby wants to shove Saccharina away once and for all and never have to deal with any of these emotions ever again. She wants to kill Ciabatta and then wallow inside of her grief forever. She wants to be childish and petty and angry. She wants to hurt someone as much as she is hurting, if only to try and halve the emotion so that it’s bearable.

But that would make her as cruel as the Sugar Plum Fairy, or Ciabatta, or Calroy; hurting and taking what she wants simply because the world is cruel and she _can_. She doesn’t have the right to hurt other people just because she’s hurting too. Ruby wants to shove Saccharina and she can tell, that Saccharina sees this, everything about her half-sister’s body is tense and ready to go for another fight; round two. It will be a bloody awful mess if Ruby shoves her and they all know it. She can see the tense set of their father’s shoulder out of the corner of her eye. If she pushes Saccharina, then he’ll fight her, too. Instead, Ruby lets her shoulders sag and says nothing, hanging back as they all lick their wounds, collect their things, make plans, and leave the temple. Ruby hangs back, bristling and reeking with the stench of adolescence, and grief, and guilt.

…

…

Her father has a conversation with Ruby that she is entirely unprepared for.

They walk out of the temple together in clumps; Saccharina walking with Gooey and her marauders, Theo only half a step behind. Cumulous and Liam in the middle, leaning slightly on each other for support. Ruby and Amethar bring up the rear.

“I’m a bad dad,” he says a few minutes into his speech, and Ruby doesn’t know how to internalize that statement. He is the _best_ dad. He’s her favorite person in the world, apart from Jet. She has no idea what he is even talking about. She’s trying to listen but her hearing has gone all fuzzy, the adrenaline seeping out of her and leaving her numb and sad all over again. He says something about Theo admonishing him and Ruby snaps back to attention.

“Theo yelled at you?” she asks, aghast. Theo, whose deference to her family gets _embarrassing_ at points, yelling at her father seems impossible.

Amethar makes a complicated face. “It wasn’t without… warrant,” he says slowly, sounding like he’s mimicking Caramelinda’s language; uncomfortable and foreign on his tongue. “The point is,” he tries again. “I’m going to be better. Do better. I promise,” he pulls her into a tight hug then kneels in front of her. It’s so awkward and strange that Ruby immediately does the same, dropping to her knees to meet his gaze once more. Her father sighs. “Kinda ruining my moment, kid,” he says, fond.

Ruby shrugs.

Her father puts his arm on the back of her neck, pressing their foreheads together. “I’m not going anywhere. Do you hear me?”

Ruby swallows thickly and then flings herself at him, holding on so tightly that it almost hurts her fingers. He doesn’t let go for a long, long time. Absently, Ruby glances up at the crunch of snow and sees Saccharina off in the distance, watching the two of them with a look of longing on her face, her new baby dragon resting on top of her shoulders. Ruby holds her father and _aches_ for her twin and watches her sister as snow falls softly around them and tries to parse her feelings.

Her father is no longer the king. Her mother no longer the queen. Jet will never grow up and rule Candia. Ruby is a bastard, her claim to the throne gone. The woman standing alone, fighting back her own complicated tears is her big sister. Her queen. The two ideas don’t compute inside her skull, she doesn’t know how to match them up.

Her father finally releases her and pulls her up to her feet. He walks over towards Theo and Cumulous, and before Ruby can think about it long enough, she breaks off from him, walking further up—towards Saccharina.

“I wanted to shove you off the platform after the fight,” Ruby says by way of greeting. Saccharina gives her a hateful look in response, and it cuts into Ruby, sudden and shockingly deep. She can’t manage to snatch herself back from it in time. The feeling balloons and Ruby feels it hook its way inside of her horribly. Ruby is learning that being that cruel to someone always hurts you as much as it hurts them, but she keeps on _doing it anyway._

“I know,” Saccharina responds, that look disappearing slightly even as her voice goes curt and guarded again. And something about that hurts even more than the look she just gave Ruby; it’s one of those things at the back of her mind that she has no idea how to deal with right now. There are _so many things_ to try and deal with right now, Jet really being dead and avenged doesn’t seem to have helped as much as she thought it would have.

Funny, that.

“Look, I…” Ruby swallows and looks out over at the mountains that they spent the last week trekking together. It’s easier than looking at Saccharina’s face. “You were right,” she admits. “That arguing with each other is a distraction.” Ruby kicks at the snow. “It’s exhausting.” Ruby breathes in and out slowly and tries very hard to gather up her thoughts. She tries to find a way to be honest, but not cruel.

(Saccharina doesn’t deserve her cruelty. She never did).

“Thank you, for saving me.”

“Oh, I—”

“I was a brat to you and you didn’t have to do that, but you did. So, thank you.”

“Ruby—”

“Thank you for telling me about your childhood, too,” she adds and Saccharina flinches. “I’m… I’ll back your claim to the throne. I believe you that you won’t just let things go back to the way they used to be. That you’ll make them pay for Jet and for… well, all of it. I believe you.”

“Thank you?” Saccharina says, confused and wary and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Ruby knows now, that most of her life has been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and that it always does. Ruby doesn’t like that she is going to do it to her once more, but she just can’t… lying feels as cruel, almost.

 _You can be my sister, or you can be my queen_ , Ruby starts to say, trying her damnedest to put all the softness that she can barely feel any more into her words. It doesn’t work. To her own ears, it sounds like Ruby has gone and shouted the words, but that can’t be right. Saccharina is still looking at her expectantly and she is trying so hard not to make this be cruel, not to make it be the start of a fight, but it feels inevitable. When that ultimatum comes out of her, it’s all brittle and angry, like the words are burning up her throat. Ruby tries to make them gentle and honest, but they shake through her body and she can feel herself trembling. _My sister or my queen, I can’t give you both._ The worst part is that Ruby doesn’t know which thing she wants Saccharina to pick. The absolute worst part is, she doesn’t even want to say that to her at all.

Ruby opens her mouth, ultimatum right there on the tip of her tongue, but what comes out instead is, “I… I can’t give you both.” And Ruby doesn’t know if she is telling the truth or if she is lying and being a coward, unwilling to try and give this woman both parts of her. Unwilling to bend because she is a princess to her core, and she gets to decide how people interact with her, that is her right. That is how the world works. It’s not fair to ask Ruby to be this woman’s sister _and_ for her to give up her rights to the throne all in one breath. It’s too much to ask.

_Right?_

_Jet would give her both, and gladly,_ an errant thought slips into her head. Ruby sucks in a breath and then snaps her mouth shut.

 _I’m going to do better;_ her father had promised.

 _Run,_ Jet had said.

 _I can’t remember the last time that I had a handle on my own life,_ her mother had said.

 _She is Lazuli’s legacy,_ Theo had said.

Ruby closes her eyes and thinks about her aunt’s face as she smiled down at Saccharina. She thinks about the way Saccharina’s voice broke as she tried to explain the way that she grew up, the way that she caught Ruby when she fell, sat beside her when she cried, fought back when she was being a brat, how it hurt and soothed all at the same time. She thinks about the way that Theo and Cumulous (and Liam) instantly swore their fealty to this woman, about the way that Jet tried to make them bond. Ruby doesn’t want another sister, she doesn’t. But, it is not her right to control someone just because she is scared, or because one day, they might matter to her.

Might already.

 _I don’t want to lose another sister,_ she thinks, without permission. _I don’t want to be alone and angry for the rest of my life._

“I’m just… I’m going to be terrible at it,” Ruby says. Saccharina frowns at her in utter confusion and Ruby swallows, trying to channel every bit of Jet’s bravery and kindness as she forces herself to turn and meet Saccharina’s eyes head-on. “I don’t know how to be anyone’s sister right now and I’m going to be terrible at it. But… I’ll try, if that’s what you want. It’s going to be hard, to be your sister and to have you as my queen,” she’s rambling now, but she can’t seem to figure out how to make it stop. “It feels like… I can’t… I don’t think that I have enough in me right now to try and do both well. It’s going to be hard, and I’m going to fuck up and hurt you. I wish that I was strong enough to just be happy to do it, but I’m not. I’m still so sad and angry and I don’t want to be but I am. And I’m sorry.”

Saccharina is very quiet for a few moments. Ruby watches as she swallows against a rough patch in her throat. She twitches, and then settles again, like she is shouldering something that she hadn’t expected would be that heavy. When she finally turns back and meets Ruby’s eyes head-on, there’s a quiet kind of understanding in her eyes, and she doesn’t have that smile like a clenched fist plastered onto her face anymore. She doesn’t look _happy,_ but… Saccharina sighs and kicks her feet at the snow, almost exactly in the same way that Ruby did only moments before, looking somehow nine and twenty-four and eighty-seven all at once. Ruby holds her breath and waits.

The two of them stare at each other and it feels like the moments right after a thunderstorm, when everything is both still and wild.

“I’m not going to be very good at it, either,” Saccharina says.

“Which thing?”

“Both, I assume. I’ve never been a sister and I’ve never been a queen and I’m doing my best to fake my way through both of them.”

“Yeah,” Ruby feels a smile threatening to pull at the corners of her mouth. “That makes sense.”

“All I’m saying is…” Saccharina sighs. “I’ve dreamt about all of you for years. I… built up a lot of expectations. I had thought that I wouldn’t need… well, thinking that you’ve moved past wanting something and then being confronted with it is another thing entirely. I may not have handled it well. I don’t handle rejection very well.”

“No one does.”

“Well…” Saccharina shrugs, looking deeply uncomfortable.

“I was a bitch,” Ruby says. “I’m sorry. I had a good reason and that reason hasn’t gone away, but it still wasn’t fair to you and you didn’t deserve it. I can’t… promise that I’ll never be a bitch to you again, but… I’ll try not to.”

“What a glowing statement,” Saccharina says dryly.

Ruby almost snaps and tells her to fuck off. Almost shoves at her and walks away. Almost decides, _fuck it, I don’t owe her anything_ , but then she looks up at Saccharina’s face and sees the teasing smile pulling at the corners of her sister’s mouth. She’s _trying_ to be teasing. She is trying to lighten the moment, not to start a fight.

Ruby sucks in a slow breath and calms her aching heart. She looks back up at Saccharina and tries to make her voice go teasing, too. “Never say I didn’t give you anything.”

It doesn’t land. Both of them wince and it’s _that,_ that works to break the tension between them. “Let’s go take back our castle,” Ruby says. The ‘our’ is deliberate. It doesn’t quite fit inside of her mouth, but it works to make Saccharina straighten up a little, to pull, if not a ghost of a smile, then certainly the ghost’s cousin, directed towards Ruby, towards their family behind her.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Saccharina says.

Ruby looks over at Saccharina and sees a bit of her shadow splayed out into the snow before her—a regular old shadow, nothing magical about it. It’s nearly as tall as Saccharina’s, but not quite. It’s not a mirror, but, there is a special kind of double to it, all the same.

It feels a little like hope.


End file.
